Vulnerabilities > CVE-2011-1989 - Improper Input Validation vulnerability in Microsoft products

047910
CVSS 9.3 - CRITICAL
Attack vector
NETWORK
Attack complexity
MEDIUM
Privileges required
NONE
Confidentiality impact
COMPLETE
Integrity impact
COMPLETE
Availability impact
COMPLETE
network
microsoft
CWE-20
critical
nessus

Summary

Microsoft Excel 2003 SP3 and 2007 SP2; Excel in Office 2007 SP2; Excel 2010 Gold and SP1; Excel in Office 2010 Gold and SP1; Office 2004, 2008, and 2011 for Mac; Open XML File Format Converter for Mac; Excel Viewer SP2; Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats SP2; Excel Services on Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP2; Excel Services on Office SharePoint Server 2010 Gold and SP1; and Excel Web App 2010 Gold and SP1 do not properly parse conditional expressions associated with formatting requirements, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted spreadsheet, aka "Excel Conditional Expression Parsing Vulnerability."

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • Buffer Overflow via Environment Variables
    This attack pattern involves causing a buffer overflow through manipulation of environment variables. Once the attacker finds that they can modify an environment variable, they may try to overflow associated buffers. This attack leverages implicit trust often placed in environment variables.
  • Server Side Include (SSI) Injection
    An attacker can use Server Side Include (SSI) Injection to send code to a web application that then gets executed by the web server. Doing so enables the attacker to achieve similar results to Cross Site Scripting, viz., arbitrary code execution and information disclosure, albeit on a more limited scale, since the SSI directives are nowhere near as powerful as a full-fledged scripting language. Nonetheless, the attacker can conveniently gain access to sensitive files, such as password files, and execute shell commands.
  • Cross Zone Scripting
    An attacker is able to cause a victim to load content into their web-browser that bypasses security zone controls and gain access to increased privileges to execute scripting code or other web objects such as unsigned ActiveX controls or applets. This is a privilege elevation attack targeted at zone-based web-browser security. In a zone-based model, pages belong to one of a set of zones corresponding to the level of privilege assigned to that page. Pages in an untrusted zone would have a lesser level of access to the system and/or be restricted in the types of executable content it was allowed to invoke. In a cross-zone scripting attack, a page that should be assigned to a less privileged zone is granted the privileges of a more trusted zone. This can be accomplished by exploiting bugs in the browser, exploiting incorrect configuration in the zone controls, through a cross-site scripting attack that causes the attackers' content to be treated as coming from a more trusted page, or by leveraging some piece of system functionality that is accessible from both the trusted and less trusted zone. This attack differs from "Restful Privilege Escalation" in that the latter correlates to the inadequate securing of RESTful access methods (such as HTTP DELETE) on the server, while cross-zone scripting attacks the concept of security zones as implemented by a browser.
  • Cross Site Scripting through Log Files
    An attacker may leverage a system weakness where logs are susceptible to log injection to insert scripts into the system's logs. If these logs are later viewed by an administrator through a thin administrative interface and the log data is not properly HTML encoded before being written to the page, the attackers' scripts stored in the log will be executed in the administrative interface with potentially serious consequences. This attack pattern is really a combination of two other attack patterns: log injection and stored cross site scripting.
  • Command Line Execution through SQL Injection
    An attacker uses standard SQL injection methods to inject data into the command line for execution. This could be done directly through misuse of directives such as MSSQL_xp_cmdshell or indirectly through injection of data into the database that would be interpreted as shell commands. Sometime later, an unscrupulous backend application (or could be part of the functionality of the same application) fetches the injected data stored in the database and uses this data as command line arguments without performing proper validation. The malicious data escapes that data plane by spawning new commands to be executed on the host.

Msbulletin

bulletin_idMS11-072
bulletin_url
date2011-09-13T00:00:00
impactRemote Code Execution
knowledgebase_id2587505
knowledgebase_url
severityImportant
titleVulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution

Nessus

  • NASL familyMacOS X Local Security Checks
    NASL idMACOSX_MS11-072.NASL
    descriptionThe remote Mac OS X host is running a version of Microsoft Excel that is affected by several vulnerabilities. If an attacker can trick a user on the affected host into opening a specially crafted Excel file, these issues could be leveraged to execute arbitrary code subject to the user
    last seen2019-10-28
    modified2011-09-14
    plugin id56178
    published2011-09-14
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2011-2018 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/56178
    titleMS11-072: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2587505) (Mac OS X)
  • NASL familyWindows : Microsoft Bulletins
    NASL idSMB_NT_MS11-072.NASL
    descriptionThe remote Windows host is running a version of Microsoft Office, Excel, or a related product that is affected by several vulnerabilities. If an attacker can trick a user on the affected host into opening a specially crafted Excel file, he could leverage this issue to execute arbitrary code subject to the user
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id56175
    published2011-09-14
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2011-2018 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/56175
    titleMS11-072: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2587505)

Oval

accepted2014-06-30T04:01:09.244-04:00
classvulnerability
contributors
  • nameJosh Turpin
    organizationSymantec Corporation
  • nameShane Shaffer
    organizationG2, Inc.
  • nameShane Shaffer
    organizationG2, Inc.
  • nameJosh Turpin
    organizationSymantec Corporation
  • nameMaria Kedovskaya
    organizationALTX-SOFT
  • nameMaria Mikhno
    organizationALTX-SOFT
  • nameMaria Mikhno
    organizationALTX-SOFT
definition_extensions
  • commentMicrosoft Excel 2003 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:764
  • commentMicrosoft Excel 2007 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:1745
  • commentMicrosoft Office 2007 SP2 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:15607
  • commentMicrosoft Office 2007 SP2 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:15607
  • commentMicrosoft Excel 2010 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:12658
  • commentMicrosoft Office 2010 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:12061
  • commentMicrosoft Office 2010 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:12061
  • commentMicrosoft Excel Viewer 2007 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:6006
  • commentMicrosoft Office Compatibility Pack is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:1853
  • commentMicrosoft Office 2007 is installed
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:1211
  • commentMicrosoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is installed.
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:2313
  • commentMicrosoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 is installed.
    ovaloval:org.mitre.oval:def:12880
descriptionMicrosoft Excel 2003 SP3 and 2007 SP2; Excel in Office 2007 SP2; Excel 2010 Gold and SP1; Excel in Office 2010 Gold and SP1; Office 2004, 2008, and 2011 for Mac; Open XML File Format Converter for Mac; Excel Viewer SP2; Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats SP2; Excel Services on Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP2; Excel Services on Office SharePoint Server 2010 Gold and SP1; and Excel Web App 2010 Gold and SP1 do not properly parse conditional expressions associated with formatting requirements, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted spreadsheet, aka "Excel Conditional Expression Parsing Vulnerability."
familywindows
idoval:org.mitre.oval:def:12974
statusaccepted
submitted2011-09-14T13:00:00
titleExcel Conditional Expression Parsing Vulnerability
version34